


Drop in the Balance

by EliFromTheSeed



Category: Starbucks - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Implosion of the caffeinated soul, Total sensual perfection, indulgence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 18:47:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1480171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EliFromTheSeed/pseuds/EliFromTheSeed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Starbucks barista finds his order complicated by estranged platitudes, and his own perfectionism</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drop in the Balance

The mid-morning rush had delivered the witching nexus of over-ordering. A dozen differentiated pick-me-ups, all caffeinated, most milky to some degree, and all journeying away. To offices, sterile, shining and draining, and to metro stops, to perk up the brave and the broken, on their way to lunchtime meetings and failing clients. But each will take with them some of me. 

Some of my skill.

Some of my soul.

Some of my Starbucks.

-

Coffee exposes the character. 

Black filter? Americano? Espresso? You're rejecting us, at the same time as you need us. How unimportant, you insist, is this crutch to your power-talk, your power-walk, your ambition ridden fire-stride. But you're lying. You don't have the energy you claim, and your anger is your tiredness. You half-spurn us because you need us. We are your hit.

Flat white? I know you. I know the tang to your laugh, and the urge you have to impress. To impress me for a while, when flat whites were the better latte. And then you stopped bothering with me, when my drink was boring again, and you showed off to your companions instead. And so became the flippant, off-hand person who always had a flat white. 'Have you never had a flat white?' you ask, knowing the answer. No, not yet, no. And so you can say that you have for years, and I know why you have. I know you.

And the latte, oh, oh the latte. How long was it since you were allowed to drink warm milk from a beaker? Oh for that warmth of infancy, instinctually connected with the comforts and closure of enclosing love. For decades that was only a memory, and then, suddenly, we came for you. Here, here, we will supply - to you, sinking beneath the thousand dollar suit and million dollar mortgage, and to you, with the boss who's cold reassurance falls so short of the love you need. Warm milk to hug and have from a plastic beaker lid. Only now, its so much more addictive.

-

I have learned to love my tools. They respond, you know. The filters find what you ask them to find; the tamper sinks into your hand if you let it sink into you, and it becomes, for that second or two, a conduit of your persuasion. And tamping mat has a personality - the only piece of kit that's allowed to stay blemished for more than a drink or two. Every hour it has a new pattern. What are you thinking, tamping mat? Why are they here, this time? What coffee calls them? What is the bean juste that will linger, unnoticed, until the waft of its home reminds them tomorrow?

And today, it told me. The customer, modest, sturdy, a sleep-lover in a bank teller's jacket, asked for a latte. And this time, so strong.

I smiled, 'sure', and saw their eyes. This was a person ruined by their world today, lower lids pulling away and red. Who was demanding things of them? Who would need to any more than pressing modernity. But its not my job to know of their indifferent manager, or errant childcare, or thoughtless neighbours. Its my job to bring them support and a daily indulgence in a single cup. So I started.

For some reason, though, today, inspiration escaped me. The press, the grind, the frother - all should have been perfect, and yet they all played flat. How I felt, lost, unable to help. This was so standard, so - average.

And then the tamper mat spoke. There. Just there, the place the circle of my powder is incomplete. Place something there.

The leftmost pipe of the filter still had a moment of inertia at its peak. I paused, mid-way to passing the cup to the customer. Now, I thought. Right now. The hell with the measure, I have the power to deliver. I swung my arm all the way back, back to the filter, for second, and then another.

And then the drop fell.

It spread and opened over the multitudinous white meniscus, thinning and colouring every tiny contour of bubble. This was power. The power I have. Now, ready, to pass on.

I handed over the cup. The customer was still bleary, barely communicative. How could a someone standing that side of the counter know the precious thing they held?

But I did. And that is enough. 

It has to be.


End file.
